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[Sordid]

My only problem with Dominus is that he's very likely to spam non-stop his lightning attack (the one with lots of demons crawling)... even with capped lightning resists, Master of Mind with Eldritch Battery, I still cannot stand too much inside it. I can drink a Topaz and face tank him, but that's only for a short while and twice per portal.

That I found extremely easy to deal with with my Rain of Arrows Ranger, since I can just stand behind a wall in such a way that he hits the edge of the wall with the lightning ghosts; meanwhile, I can shoot a little off to the side of him and still hit him with the RoA AOE.

[kcwong]

My only problem with Dominus is that he's very likely to spam non-stop his lightning attack (the one with lots of demons crawling)... even with capped lightning resists, Master of Mind with Eldritch Battery, I still cannot stand too much inside it. I can drink a Topaz and face tank him, but that's only for a short while and twice per portal.

That I found extremely easy to deal with with my Rain of Arrows Ranger, since I can just stand behind a wall in such a way that he hits the edge of the wall with the lightning ghosts; meanwhile, I can shoot a little off to the side of him and still hit him with the RoA AOE.

He's also easy with my summoner witch (with Vitality aura for my super zombies)... no such luck this time around as I'm an incinerate witch.

Going to find Zana now...

[Skyrunner]

So.. how do you build a scion? It doesn't seem like there's any specialty she has. >_> Spectral Throw is neat but kinda useless--too much mana used. I am currently level 3.

[Jack_Bread]

Spectral throw was recently nerfed because of how op it was -- and it's still pretty good. At level 3, you're naturally not going to have the mana to use it. It truely shines when you get Lesser Multiple Projectile + some other gems linked with it.
Scion's specialty is being close to everything. She has the easiest time taking Eldritch Battery and Mind Over Matter, which is a pretty awesome defensive keystone combo. She also gets to her OP-again life wheel, too. Building her depends on what you're planning. Remember she's good at everything, but that makes her not optimal at everything, too. Jack of all trades, master of none.

[Skyrunner]

That doesn't help ;-; How am I supposed to build her? I have zero idea.

[Jack_Bread]

Er, what do you want to do with her? I can help you with whatever. A physical spectral throw build would be fairly simple.

[kcwong]

That doesn't help ;-; How am I supposed to build her? I have zero idea.

Take a look at the key nodes in the skill tree and pick your niche(s). You gotta focus in PoE or you will fail in higher difficulties.

Offensively, do you want to:
- Make use of critical hits?
- What kind of damage type? Physical, Chaos or Elemental?
- What kind of weapons? Each weapon type has a specific use. Swords are more accurate, axes hit hard, daggers crit., claws heal you on hit, etc.
- Which skill gem do you have in mind?
etc.

Defensively, do you want to:
- Use armor to soak physical damage?
- Use Iron Reflex or not?
- Use energy shield? With Chaos Inoculation perhaps?
- Evade with a sizable Life pool in case you got hit? Grab Acrobatics or not?
- Use leech to replenish your life, or your energy shield? Do you want leech to be instantaneous?
- Use Mind over Matter to soak damage?
etc.

Find your niches, then go to PoEBuilder.com and try to plot an efficient path to your key nodes. Plan it using 90 skill points - it will take you a very long time to get more than that. Then link us your build and we can give you some feedback.

Some guidelines:
- In general you want 4k+ effective life (ES + Life) to survive in end-game. 3k will do too if you don't plan to run the more difficult contents.
- You don't need to focus on getting damage nodes - it's not your first priority. Most of your damage will come from leveling skill gems.
- Evade must be paired with a sizable effective life pool. Otherwise end-game enemies will one-shot you.
- Resist nodes are not really needed - you can easily go over the cap even with -60% penalty in merciless. The ones that raise resistance cap however, are good, as elemental resists are a simple percentage reduction, the more you have, the more effective it is per point.

That said, do not expect to get it on first try... your first few characters will be your learning tool. They may be able to make it to mid-Cruel and then will have trouble progressing further. At that point, take off all their gear and start a new one. Using items you collected you should be able to progress faster this time, and make a better skill tree.

Keep your old failed characters around; GGG changed the tree heavily multiple times and gave us optional full tree resets. Your old characters may be saved in the future.

[Skyrunner]

That sounds suspiciously like a generic answer to whenever anyone posts a question like that.

[Aklyon]

That sounds suspiciously like a generic answer to whenever anyone posts a question like that.

Well, Scion is the generic class. She is right in the center, with close-ish access to any direction but all of the major keystone nodes are at the edges of the tree, not near the center. So you need to know how you're getting to what you want to get to, or before that, deciding where you're going for in the first place and whether it will help to start as a scion or as a different class. Scion also gets an assortment of all three colors of skill gem for quest rewards.

[debvon]

I played this a long time ago and got a shadow to 54. I went for heavy evasion, daggers, crit multiplier/crit chance, phase acrobatics, iron reflexes. I had double-strike linked with crit chance and splash damage. I used blink strike and whirling blades to remain mobile in combat.

In all difficulties I had a pretty easy time of killing everything quickly. But in the higher difficulty I died instantly to pretty much everything. I could not solo Hailrake on tidal island no matter how much kiting I did. I just couldn't do it. I tried moving on and grinding in certain areas, but I was just taking too many hits and dying constantly. I even tried using different health potion types. Evasion just seemed shitty, or at least it seemed shitty the way I was using it. Was it ever buffed or what was I probably doing wrong?

[Aklyon]

Hailrake uses an entirely different skill now, you get to fight glacial cascade (which hits a bit harder imo, but has a limited range) instead of the wonderfully freeze-laden ice spear they used to fire at you from offscreen.

And evasion was terrible sometime ago. Its somewhat better now.

[aristabulus]

... , iron reflexes. ..... Evasion just seemed shitty, or at least it seemed shitty the way I was using it. Was it ever buffed or what was I probably doing wrong?

Emphasis mine upon exactly what you did wrong.  You turned all your evasion into armour on a class that is on the wrong side of the board to do so effectively.

-----

Since the last time I posted several months have passed, and I got a new video card.  Once my summer class ended in late July, I fiddled around a bit before Forsaken Masters, was okay... the extra side dungeons were nice, but the Vaal gems had limited utility. 

After Forsaken Masters, I've been suffering persistent performance issues.  My ping goes to crap whenever the screen gets even a little busy, and I know it's not my hardware struggling this time; the legacy of freshman optimization continues!  >_>

The hideout and extra crafting stuff seems decent, though I'll not ever get to mess with it myself...  school comes first.  I'm also not thrilled with the design-level choice of adding a reputation grind...  I thought this was not supposed to be a mumorperger?

[Aklyon]

I've had no problems with ping on medium graphics and minimal shadows, summoner or otherwise. And on wireless at that, since its impractical to drag cable all the way up here.

[aristabulus]

I've had no problems with ping on medium graphics and minimal shadows, summoner or otherwise. And on wireless at that, since its impractical to drag cable all the way up here.

I'm on medium, no shadows, and wireless.  Ultimately, it's not important enough for me to fix... school owns me for the next 4 months.

[debvon]

... , iron reflexes. ..... Evasion just seemed shitty, or at least it seemed shitty the way I was using it. Was it ever buffed or what was I probably doing wrong?

Emphasis mine upon exactly what you did wrong.  You turned all your evasion into armour on a class that is on the wrong side of the board to do so effectively.

I was going off of memory, I didn't take iron reflexes. Sorry. It was something else that increased evasion significantly. Is there one that turns all armour into evasion? If so that's the one. Needless to say I could get off a few swipes and blink, but if I got hit at all I'd just blow up.